Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
In our search of that something else, we failed time and again.
Those who we encountered either wanted to lead us or wanted us to lead them.
There were those who got close to us out of an eagerness to use us, or to gaze backward, be it with anthropological or militant nostalgia. …
At last, someone who understood that we were not looking for shepherds to guide us, nor flocks to lead to the promised land. Neither masters nor slaves. Neither leaders nor leaderless masses.
— Subcomandante Marcos. "Between Light and Shadow". Enlace Zapatista, 2014-05-27.
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
I think it was Bernard Williams who once remarked about a mildly famous thought experiment which goes like this:
You’re walking by a lake and see a child drowning. But it turns out that the child is Hitler or Trump or whoever. Now apply various moral theories to see what they tell you to do in this situation.
Williams says, Anyone who actually behaved this way in such a situation is already a moral monster. A morally good person seeing a child in danger does not stop and think about the ethics of the situation.
The morally good person, not a moral hero mind you - this is about meeting a moral minimum, sees the need and acts.
Was reminded of this as I read your thread.
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands
Thx
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You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what to do. You feel powerless. Nothing you can do seems like it could possibly be enough.
And then the work is there, on your doorstep, in your hands, and you •just do it• because that is what you do.
Nobody is coming to save you. The choice is ourselves or nothing. The moment you believe that, that you •know• it in your bones, is the moment the work truly begins.
6/
@inthehands @threadreaderapp unroll
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My fellow people of the United States, if I have anything to teach from what Minneapolis just lived through, it is this:
Nobody is coming to save us.
Not Congress. Not the courts. Not the ICC or the EU or NATO. Not the generals or the rank and file. Not the press. Not the markets. Not the elections. Not some mythical version of “The People” that materializes out of nowhere as some messianic external force.
We’re it. We’re all we’ve got. If we don’t stop fascism from completely engulfing the US, then nobody stops it.
7/
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands @threadreaderapp@threadreaderapp@birdsite.oliviaappleton.com unroll
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And of course there are a thousand practical lessons in fighting authoritarians, and we are passing them on as best we can as so many thousands of thousands have before us — but for now, for today, this is the one thing I can tell you: stop waiting for someone else to save you. This is it. We’re all we’ve got. Either we do this or no one does.
❝
It is either the beginning or the end
of the world, and the choice is ourselves
or nothing.
❞/end
@inthehands the Land of the free and the home of the brave 🫡
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands Thank you, Paul.
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[The quote is from the book _The Country Between Us_ by Carolyn Forché. It is some of the most powerful and gut-wrenching poetry I’ve ever read, and the book still burns like a hot coal in my hands when I hold it. The book is among other things the origin of my handle, “in the hands.” Don’t look up that quote; look up the book. Read it slowly. You’ll know the quotes when you find them.]
@inthehands Thanks for this. I'm not in the US but I think we may need this perspective in Australia pretty soon. The problems won't be exactly the same here, but the answers will be.
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T tanyakaroli@expressional.social shared this topic
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It was a dark, dark day when US cops repurposed this wise adage by inverting its meaning. Or maybe it's just the LAPD, but they use it a lot and I hate it.
@AdrianRiskin @jzb @inthehands They should think twice about playing that "game," as it's one two can play
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9/
Get rid of Citizens United & their tax cuts.
48. Bernard Marcus $9,397,150
49. Steve Brodie $6,481,298
50. Daniel Newlin $6,063,928
51. Trevor D. Rees-Jones $5,765,124
52. Ross & Sarah Perot $5,643,416
53. Harold C. Simmons $5,596,530
54. Kelly Navarro $5,373,100
55. Alice Walton $10,248,000
56. Rob Granieri $5,587,899https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donors
@Npars01 The most dangerous one, who is now making himself felt here in Europe, is Thiel of Palantir, head of the Heritage Foundation and Project 25. I cannot seem to find him in your list. He is the one who would like the return of the Middle Ages, and has already succeeded to a certain extent in the US...
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
@inthehands We are many all over the world https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/let-him-go-how-peckham-24217379
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Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.
And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.
🧵
Well spoken Paul. The choice is indeed ours to make: freedom, or tyranny, all, or nothing.
Thank you for your words and actions. Thank you for your sacrifices.
Long live the people of Minneapolis, may your deeds inspire others to resist tyranny around the world.
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I used to wonder whether, say, the French resistance or the Underground Railroad could ever form in the modern US today. I don’t wonder that anymore. I watched it happen. I made it happen. •We• made it happen. And my part was so small! And yet…we made it happen.
Because we knew that if we didn’t, nobody, nobody would.
10/
@inthehands My late Father-in-Law and his family helped hide escaped prisoners and pilots etc in WW11, to have been discovered would have meant all the family being shot. I'm glad that didn't happen, not least that I would not have been married for 54 years to his late son who was 6 months old at the time.
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M malte@radikal.social shared this topic
